


A Time to Cast Away Stones and a Time to Gather Stones Together

by Mythwine



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s01e01 Pilot, Gen, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-12 13:34:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11162901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mythwine/pseuds/Mythwine
Summary: John Winchester finally figures out what killed his wife all those years ago.  And once he knows what it is, he has a difficult decision to make.





	A Time to Cast Away Stones and a Time to Gather Stones Together

A demon. He goes very still with the knowledge. He’d known, ever since he looked up in a dark nursery and saw his wife’s body stuck to the ceiling and bursting into flames, that something horrible and unnatural had happened to her. But he didn’t know _what._ Missouri had helped get him started, introducing him to the world of the supernatural and the reality of monsters and spirits. She told him that whatever it was was very evil, but he’d already known that. And she’d had contacts he could use for research. So of course he’d eventually learned that demons were real, and he remembered Pastor Jim going over the tell-tale signs with him – black smoke, sulfur, stopped clocks, eyes that go black from possession. None of those had anything to do with the night he lost Mary, and so…he hadn’t thought it was a demon he was hunting. But maybe the evidence had been burned up in the fire; hard to notice sulfur in a charred house, and he couldn’t bring himself to go back to check after he knew. It was too late, anyway. But some evidence did not disappear with time, and the records were clear. Right there, the demon omens, stark and clear and taunting. If only he had known; if only _someone_ had known to look, to warn him. 

But that just begged the question he’d always had: _Why?_ What was a demon doing in baby Sammy’s nursery? Why had his wife been killed? The potential answers were troubling. He’d been hunting all manner of creatures for years, and they had motivations for what they did. Once you understood that, it was a lot easier to stop them. Vengeful spirits wanted payback for their own betrayals or violent deaths. Monsters wanted to feed. Sure, demons wanted death and destruction, but they also wanted to steal souls. They didn’t need permission to possess someone or to murder them, but the types of goals that made them truly demonic involved them being _invited in._ What had happened that a demon had been permitted to enter his home? What had drawn it there? He did not like the possible answers to those questions, and it wasn’t like Mary was still around to ask.

But what really mattered was what he was going to do about it now. He wanted to kill the demon, and so of course he would. He hadn’t spent the last 20 years hunting to walk away now. He’d burned a lot of his bridges, but not all of them, and he still had resources available to follow demonic omens to find these things, and to do the research he needed to find something that would kill it. Because just exorcising it back to hell wasn’t nearly satisfying enough. He wanted this thing dead. But…demons weren’t mindless foes. They planned, and they hunted you back. He had found demonic activity around Lawrence, Kansas ten years prior to the attack on his family. This thing would figure out he was on its tail before he ever got close, and when that happened….

His family would be in danger again. This creature would target his boys to try to make him back off. Dean was a hunter, and if they stayed together, he would be fine. Sure, Dean had wanted to do the lone wolf thing, strike out on his own, and John had let him. His older boy wasn’t a child anymore, hadn’t been for years, and it was only reasonable to go their separate ways. They kept in touch, let each other know what jobs they were working and where. He was in New Orleans right now. But he could call Dean back if he needed to, keep him close, let him know what was coming. Dean would listen to sense. 

But Sammy? Off at school, he was a sitting duck. He would never see an attack coming. He wasn’t prepared. Worse, he wouldn’t listen to his father any more. He wouldn’t see reason, wouldn’t want to hear about something coming after him, wouldn’t stand still for long enough for John to explain the danger he was in. He’d shout and stubbornly do the opposite of what his father requested, or end the conversation before it began. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, his younger son was one of those bridges he’d burned over the years. He wasn’t sure why. Even now, he didn’t understand the resentment Sam harbored towards their family. Sure, he understood wanting a normal life, not liking being a hunter. No one chose hunting; it was always in reaction to personal tragedy that someone struck out after the evil that lurked in the shadows. Normal people could let well enough alone, because they didn’t know any better. But over the years, John had seen enough normal people die to know that the illusion of safety was no substitute for the real thing. What he didn’t understand is why Sam blamed him for teaching him how to be safe rather than letting him grow up in that illusion. Why was it such a terrible thing to be ready for a fight that was inevitably coming for you? 

And then the demon omens started in Palo Alto. He panicked. He was in California himself, and his first impulse was to drop his case, drive down to Sam’s school, and force him to leave, drugging and kidnapping him if necessary. But what then? He couldn’t keep his son tied up indefinitely, and forcible kidnapping was no way to repair a damaged relationship. Sam might not even believe his talk of demons and omens. He didn’t want to admit it, but he couldn’t be the one to save his son. But Dean could. He did not know if the brothers had stayed in touch or if they were even still talking to each other, but Sam idolized his brother and spent his early teen years wanting to be just like him. Things had obviously changed, but Sam would let Dean in the door long before he would let his own father in. 

He’d called and checked in with Dean before he’d left for this case. They liked to let each other know where they were going to be, what they were working on, so he’d explained that it was a missing persons pattern that had gotten hot recently. It turned out it was a woman in white haunting a stretch of highway, and he had figured out who she was shortly after reaching town. But…no time to take care of her when a demon was hunting his own son. And so, the next time he got a call from Dean, he let it go to voicemail. Dean was just letting him know he’d finished up his most recent job, and might stick around for a few days unless his Dad had heard of anything else that needed doing. John smiled at that, despite himself. Dean in New Orleans, partying after a case and enjoying himself. He sounded happy; he’d probably met a girl. That was the real reason he had expressed an interest in not sharing a hotel room with his father any more – he had wanted to strike out on his own so he’d have some space to himself, a place to bring girls back to. John shook his head. 

The next day, he got another call, and he could hear the concern Dean was trying to leave out of his voice. _“Hey, didn’t hear from you after I left that message. You still working that case in Jericho? The weather’s nice here. Let me know if you need anything. Okay then.”_ The ‘weather’s nice’ comment was code for everything being fine there. There were several more calls, but Dean must’ve hung up without leaving a message. He didn’t mean to worry him, but he couldn’t feel bad about misleading him. Dean’s family _was_ in danger. It just wasn’t his father he should be worrying about. And Jericho was only about five or six hours from where Sam was at school…there was a good chance Dean would figure out that he needed to check in with his brother, but he couldn’t tell Sam he’d done that because their father told him to. Sam would listen to his brother, but it had to be Dean’s idea. And if Dean noticed any signs of demonic activity around Sam’s place, he’d get him out of there. 

_“You forget to charge your phone or something? Drop it in a river? You know my number and you know how payphones work. Call me.”_

He turned his phone over and over in his hand. This was not fair. He shouldn’t leave Dean without an explanation. But he couldn’t think of any explanation that would work. He was hoping that with himself out of the picture, Dean and Sam could at least repair their relationship and stick together. If he couldn’t save Sam, then Dean could, but only if he wasn’t there. This would have to work. And if and when they caught up to him, he’d have to give them some BS excuse about keeping them safe by keeping them away from him. 

_“Hey, I’m done in New Orleans, so I’m thinking about heading out west anyway. You, uh, thinking about checking in any time soon?”_

He sighed, and went and paid for the room for another week. That should be long enough for Dean to get there, to find his research, to find everything he’d left behind. And yes the boy would worry, but…it was for the best, really. He had to keep his family safe, and he couldn’t think of a better way than making sure his boys stuck together. John took a deep breath and then decided that if he was going to do this, he had to quit wasting time. He left his journal with the next non-demon job coordinates. He drove out to Centennial Highway two days before Halloween. He cruised up and down the stretch where the missing persons vanished from. And when he saw the figure of a woman on the side of the road, he stopped. He had figured she would like him, even though he’d never cheated while Mary was alive. 

She was polite, for a ghost. She got into his car and asked him to take her home, indicating the way to the abandoned house he had suspected was hers when she was alive. And then he called Dean for the first time in three weeks. As luck would have it, it went to voicemail. 

_“Dean, something big is starting to happen. I think I need to look into it and figure out what is going on. Be very careful. We’re all in danger.”_ That would have to do the trick. A message like that should get Dean’s attention, and if he was lucky, his passenger would leave her own fingerprint behind. Certainly it would be enough to get Dean out of his party haze in the Big Easy and out to California where his family needed him. It sounded too vague, but it was as explicit as he could be without saying, "Sam's in danger; go save your brother."

The ghost wasn’t very happy about the phone call, and tried to get his attention. He kept his eye on her, but she didn’t make any moves. And so when they reached the turnoff to her road, he blasted her with rock salt and left town. Hopefully, Dean wouldn’t be far behind him.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Author’s Notes:_ There is no Centennial Highway in Jericho, CA, though there is a town called Jericho Canyon several hours north of Palo Alto where Sam was at Stanford. But Dean introduces himself as being from ‘up in Modesto,’ and Modesto is east of Palo Alto, so…they were probably picturing a town further south when they first wrote it. That ‘600 miles to Colorado’ detail suggests they are much closer to the Nevada border, though. In Season 7 Ep 6 (Slash Fiction), Jericho is identified as being near the 70 and 395 junction just north of Reno, NV (but on the California side). Thus, Supernatural’s Jericho is just over a 5 hour drive from Palo Alto, and Stanford was *not* on the way from New Orleans (though only a short detour). 
> 
> John Winchester grossly underestimates how freaked out Dean is by that voicemail. But he certainly didn’t underestimate Dean’s ability to keep Sam safe. 
> 
> Title taken from Ecclesiastes 3:5, King James version…because that is the version The Byrds used for ‘Turn, Turn, Turn.’


End file.
